'The Musketeers' Recap: 'Commodities'

This week on The Musketeers: It’s Gaius! No wait, wrong show. James Callis has left the world of Battlestar Gallactica for that of The Musketeers. Though it seems this character, Émile, shares some traits with Gaius Baltar like extreme self-absorption and overconfidence in his abilities. The episode opens with the Musketeers scouting him out in a bar along with pretty much everyone else in the pub—the guy definitely draws a crowd.

The Musketeers have been tasked with escorting Émile into Paris to appear before the King. When they realize they’re being followed they decide to stop along the road, only to be ambushed by about a dozen men. The scuttle ends when Émile’s business partner, Paul Meunier, makes himself known. He isn’t too happy with Émile, whose expeditions he has funded and yet who failed to get in contact with him when he’d returned to France. The Musketeers manage to make Paul stand down but they’ve got bigger a problem on their hands anyway—Porthos was hit during the fight, and he’s not doing so good. So they agree to take him somewhere nearby to get him stitched up before continuing on to Paris.

Athos leads them to an old abandoned house, which apparently belongs to him. For Athos, the house holds painful memories of happier times he spend there with Milady.

The next morning, Émile’s wife shows up, pretending to have been injured. D’Artagnan is wary at first to help her, since he has underestimated her before, and it seems his first instinct to distrust was correct since when he goes to help her down from her horse, she holds him at gunpoint, takes back her husband, and rides off.

Unfortunately, they run right into the two men in black who have been following them this whole time and one of them shoots Maria. Émile takes off, leaving his wife’s dead body on the ground and D’Artagnan follows. After Aramis shoots one of the men, he learns that they are in fact agents of Spain sent to kill Émile.

D’Artagnan catches up with Émile and they all head back. While they were gone, Porthos had taken a look at Émile’s drawings and didn’t like what he found. When they all arrive back at Athos’ place, Porthos immediately attacks Émile having discovered the drawings featured a slave ship.

In a short flashback we learn finally learn a bit more about the mysterious Milady’s supposed death—that Athos was there when she was hanged and gave the final order himself. It’s not much, but it’s nice to get at a glimpse into the past of at least one Musketeer.

Athos goes into the village to settle his affairs, the details of which he doesn’t disclose to the rest of the Musketeers, who continue on their journey into Paris and on to see the King.

But the man he goes to see, the one who executed Milady, is dead. He decides the best method to deal with his pain is to drink himself into a stupor, only to wake in the middle of the night to Milady trying to burn his house down.

She divulges the secret to her escape, seducing his friend, convincing him to cut her down once Athos had turned away. Of course, she was also the one who killed him, to put him out of his misery after finding Athos had returned. She says she’s there to “erase the past,” but before she can follow through and kill Athos, D’Artagnan shows up, saving his life.

Émile goes in to see the Cardinal, who tells him that his life depends on the offer he lays out for him. When he emerges, Aramis and Porthos ask what his punishment is but instead of a whipping or an execution, like they were expecting, the Cardinal has decided to invest in Émile’s plantation plans.

But the Musketeers, Porthos especially, simply cannot let this guy get away with potentially ruining thousands of lives or let him profit from slave labor. Their solution is obviously to stage a fight in the pub that night. They pretend to be protecting Émile from his former business partner, and proceed to usher Émile outside and onto a ship. Yet what they’re really doing is delivering him into the hands of the Spanish, who wanted him captured anyway. It’s a win, win situation. Except for Émile of course.